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Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) kicked off the Tokyo Game Show with a surprise for Japanese consumers: a price cut for the yet-to-be-launched PlayStation 3 console.
The cheapest of two versions of the console will cost ¥49,980 (US$427) ın Japan, said Ken Kutaragi, president of SCEI in a speech at the show on Friday morning. That’s more than a ¥10,000 drop from the previously announced price of ¥62,790.
“In Japan there is a perception that one yen is the same as one dollar and one euro so Japanese people feel it’s a little expensive,” said Nanako Kato, a spokeswoman for SCEI in Tokyo. [Ed: Seems she meant to compare 100 yen to $1.] The U.S. launch price is US$499 and the cut would bring the Japanese price in line with that of the U.S. in the minds of consumers, she said.
The price cut will only apply in Japan.
Asked whether there was now a risk that consumers in the U.S. and Europe would perceive the PlayStation 3 to be overpriced in their markets, she said: “I guess we’ll find that out from now.”
Sony also said it would fit a high-definition HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) on both versions of the PlayStation 3. The company had previously said it would only be available on the higher-end model.
The PlayStation 3, Sony’s first new games console in more than five years, is scheduled to launch in Japan on November 11 and in the U.S. on November 17. It was supposed to be available in Europe at the same time as the U.S. launch but problems obtaining sufficient supply of blue laser diodes for the console’s optical disc drive pushed Sony to delay the European launch until 2007.
— Martyn Williams
01:38 PM 
Mark Hiratsuka •
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